The World of Warcraft Battle Plan

Blizzard has posted their Battle Plan on the official forums, and in it they talk about what we've already seen such as Naxxramas, to the Dungeon Finder tool and even dual specs. Then further on down they speak about the whole new El Sagrario Rubí raid encounter which is slated for sometime in the hopefully near future.

After that they look even further into the future and touch on subjects for the upcoming expansion Cataclysm like the two new races, the world changing, Operation Gnomeregan & Zalazane’s Fall, and all new hardware upgrades that are planned before the expansion.

Read the original post after the break!

Wrath of the Lich King hit store shelves November 13, 2008 and quickly became the fastest-selling PC game of all time. Since its release, we've continued to expand on its content and tell the story of the Lich King and many others who have been touched by the Scourge’s emergence in Azeroth. From the initial release of World of Warcraft to The Burning Crusade, and then again with Wrath of the Lich King, we have steadily learned, grown, and have pushed ourselves to become better designers, and we'd like to take a moment to share with you some of the development team's recent highlights, as well as a glimpse into the future. As our mission statement says, we continue striving to provide the most epic entertainment experiences ever.

The Rise and Fall the Lich King After feedback from the community indicated some disappointment with being unable to interact more directly with the story surrounding Illidan, we made a concerted effort to reconnect everyone with the story of the Lich King and the struggles of Azeroth against the Scourge. From the moment of entry into Northrend, the story began to play out, and the heroes of Azeroth were asked to take on the challenge the Lich King and the Scourge presented them.

Players were able to experience Naxxramas as a level-80 dungeon and face down another of the Old Gods, Yogg Saron in Ulduar. In order to better prepare for the trials facing them in Icecrown Citadel, the Argent Crusade set up camp in Icecrown to hold a tournament meant to hone Azeroth’s finest heroes into a force the Lich King couldn’t afford to ignore.

Today, thousands of players continue to enter into the Icecrown Citadel to face one of the most feared villains in Warcraft history. We’ve seen the rise of Arthas to the Frozen Throne as the Lich King and we’ve seen his fall at the hands of the greatest champions of Azeroth.

In order to get more players into these encounters, we improved upon what was once known as the Looking for Group system and transformed it into the Dungeon Finder System. Within the system, players have been able to get together with each other from all over their battlegroup and reap additional rewards that have helped them get the gear they need to venture into Icecrown Citadel and take part in an event that has been the culmination of seven years of story.

We also implemented our Quest Tracking feature, dual spec support, updated badge and reward system and much more.

The end of the Lich King is not the end of our plans for World of Warcraft, however, and the story carries on.

The Ruby Sanctum Within Wyrmrest Temple are the chambers of the aspects and a new 10- and 25-player raid dungeon currently in development, the Ruby Sanctum. Here players will encounter the Black Dragonflight as they make an assault on the Red Dragonflight in a bid to weaken them before their master Deathwing’s reemergence into Azeroth out of the fiery depths of Deepholm. This encounter will be similar to the Obsidian Sanctum and grant all-new rewards for players looking for a new challenge.

With so many epic adventures to partake in within Northrend, the community asked, “What’s next?” We answered at last year’s BlizzCon, “Cataclysm.”

Cataclysm As we announced at last year’s BlizzCon, we’ve been hard at work on our third expansion, Cataclysm. This new expansion advances the story of Azeroth and introduces new content for both beginning and end-game players. It will introduce two new races, new dungeons, new class and race combinations, and a change to the very face of Azeroth as we know it.

Two New RacesIn the expansion we will be introducing goblins into the Horde, as they begin their journey in their homeland, the Isle of Kezan. Meanwhile, behind the Greymane wall, the fate of the people of Gilneas will be revealed at last as they join the Alliance as worgen.

Each race will have its own unique starting zones in which players will get to know the story of these two races. As a part of the story progression, the land itself will be changing via phasing to enhance the experience.

The World Trembles Much of Azeroth will be changing as a result of Deathwing’s eruption from Deepholme deep within Azeroth. We have been making great progress and have nearly finished all of our expected changes in Kalimdor and much of Eastern Kingdoms. Some areas will still be familiar, while others will be more drastically transformed.

In addition to the changes to familiar territories, we are also currently working on adding great new high-level content zones such as Mount Hyjal and the Sunken City of Vashj’ir.

Operation Gnomeregan The gnomes have been long without a home to call their own. As a young gnome you are told that the benevolent dwarves who have taken you in will aid you in your bid to grow strong so that you might reclaim Gnomeregan once more.

To that end, we are introducing a new quest line and event by which players can take part in taking the first steps to do just that by recapturing Gnomeregan’s surface and reclaiming a small portion of their former home. Once this area has been reclaimed, all new gnomes will start in this reclaimed territory.

Zalazane’s Fall We are also currently working on a new quest line and event by which players can take part in joining with Vol’jin, leader of the trolls, in the taking of the Echo Isles from Zalazane, who now controls these islands.

Once the islands have been claimed in the name of the Darkspear tribe, all new trolls will begin within their own starting zone and begin reforging the troll nation into a semblance of its former glory.

Database Upgrades With the addition of so many great new features, we wanted to make sure that our infrastructure was in place to fully support them. To that end, we will be performing additional database hardware upgrades prior to the release of Cataclysm. This will allow all players to experience this new expansion as intended.

While we do not have specific dates to share at this point in time, we will be working to communicate when these upgrades occur to ensure the best possible experiences during this time and continuing into the future.

Comentario de metian

Comentario de Khadaan

Awesome, so far in development already! Can't wait to see new starting zones.

Comentario de DCsed

on 2010-04-12T11:44:00-05:00

Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall here we come! :D

Comentario de HighLordOmega

on 2010-04-12T11:48:00-05:00

Hmmm.... I wonder if my freezer has a Cryo-stasis setting.....

Comentario de Gnub

on 2010-04-12T11:56:34-05:00

Really looking forward to it :D

Comentario de Shigy

on 2010-04-12T12:03:04-05:00

Can't wait for the trolls and gnomes to retake there homes.

Comentario de Realsmooth

on 2010-04-12T12:03:42-05:00

wow, with this all said aka that they are still working on this plus another lvl 80 raid plus the class changes still im slighty worried it wont be out this year at all like they have said in the past aka i forsee it not coming out till like next spring.......... need i say more?

Comentario de adidas22

on 2010-04-12T12:20:22-05:00

Next spring? I don't think so.They have multiple teams working on all these things.It's not like they have one team working on all this stuff.It will be out sometime between the very end of summer and Christmas, assuming all goes well.

Comentario de vashfontane

on 2010-04-12T12:50:39-05:00

quick post something else so the druids will stop QQing!

Comentario de Votix

on 2010-04-12T12:53:27-05:00

This going to be awesome!

Comentario de Realsmooth

on 2010-04-12T13:13:30-05:00

Next spring? I don't think so.They have multiple teams working on all these things.It's not like they have one team working on all this stuff.It will be out sometime between the very end of summer and Christmas, assuming all goes well.

I know they have multiple teams seeing that they make billions a year in profit it would be really sad if the didn't. What im saying is ok they have to figure out exactly how they want to class changes and all the quest lines which they said were still in development ie they dont have them done so they can't even program them. So once they figure out exactly what they want to do with everything they then need to put it on the PTR and have it tested and find out wHat is and what isn't going to work well. Then they have to change it all again add the changes to the PTR, test it, probably change it again, add it to the PTR, decide to change it back, add to the PTR. See where im going with this? Blizzard doesnt just make it and put it out they test it, then they test it more, then they change it, then they test it.......... and so on. So do ihink it wont be out till next year yes i do. Do i hope it is out sooner yes i do. But to be honest i highly doubt it.

Comentario de Zelgadiss

on 2010-04-12T13:18:54-05:00

That's what the beta testing is for. To find out what needs to be fixed and what's working correctly. I see this coming out in August - November, for sure.

Comentario de Scaurus

on 2010-04-12T13:19:58-05:00

Next spring? I don't think so.They have multiple teams working on all these things.It's not like they have one team working on all this stuff.It will be out sometime between the very end of summer and Christmas, assuming all goes well.

I know they have multiple teams seeing that they make billions a year in profit it would be really sad if the didn't. What im saying is ok they have to figure out exactly how they want to class changes and all the quest lines which they said were still in development ie they dont have them done so they can't even program them. So once they figure out exactly what they want to do with everything they then need to put it on the PTR and have it tested and find out wHat is and what isn't going to work well. Then they have to change it all again add the changes to the PTR, test it, probably change it again, add it to the PTR, decide to change it back, add to the PTR. See where im going with this? Blizzard doesnt just make it and put it out they test it, then they test it more, then they change it, then they test it.......... and so on. So do ihink it wont be out till next year yes i do. Do i hope it is out sooner yes i do. But to be honest i highly doubt it.

Don't forget that the development teams have probably been working on this since before WotLK was released. I'm sure they're closer than you might think they are at this point. Now if they would give us at least a tentative date for the PTR to open, we could have some idea as to a release date.

Comentario de Adamsm

on 2010-04-12T13:22:04-05:00

Don't forget that the development teams have probably been working on this since before WotLK was released. I'm sure they're closer than you might think they are at this point. Now if they would give us at least a tentative date for the PTR to open, we could have some idea as to a release date.

You mean Beta heh.

Comentario de Realsmooth

on 2010-04-12T13:31:24-05:00

Call me pessimistic but you guys obviously didnt read the recent posts from blizzard as i did. They didn't give exact numbers on anything class wise therefor they havnt got them figured out and they havnt even released all the classes. So its whatever to me im happy facerolling kids in pvp for now.

Comentario de Voltt

on 2010-04-12T14:12:28-05:00

You're acting like they just recently started working on Cataclysm. As stated before, they probably started when WotLK came out. I'd say November is a good estimate.

Comentario de Psyklone

on 2010-04-12T14:19:34-05:00

Zalazane is level 8 and the objective of a starting quest chain isn't he? Can't be too hard.Volj'in needs to pull finger.

Comentario de Zulatomten

on 2010-04-12T15:04:27-05:00

Next spring? I don't think so.They have multiple teams working on all these things.It's not like they have one team working on all this stuff.It will be out sometime between the very end of summer and Christmas, assuming all goes well.

well when blizzard release the Beta to Cataclysm the expansion will be released about 2months later, that's what it have done be4 what 've heard

Comentario de Archangel76

on 2010-04-12T15:25:50-05:00

It'll be out before Christmas. Likely November.

Reasons why:1) Target for holiday season shopping. Equals more $$$.2) Blizzcon is in October. Lines up to build excitement around it. More $$$.3) Maintaining excitement and building it up for a product is an issue of timing. Wait too long (greater than one year) and interest dies. People can't hold excitement up that long. Lose $$$ by going too long.4) They announced it at last year's Blizzcon. Again, leads into build up for this year's Blizzcon and more $$$.

Only reason they wouldn't:1) Serious concerns over product quality/readiness. Severe loss in product quality equals loss in reputation and thus..... loss of $$$

Comentario de Lump

on 2010-04-12T15:56:36-05:00

Will gnomeregan and echo isles be open to people who have not finished the quest chain after a while? Asking because the bosses will be there for the other faction to kill.